Giveaway...Winner

And the winner to my Sally Hansen giveaway is... #10 ...the chatty mommy! I will be contacting you. Thanks for playing everyone!

Giveaway Reminder

Here is your last chance to get this awesome giveaway before I choose a winner tomorrow.

It is for FOUR sets of Sally Hansen nail polish strips and the clear top coat to seal them in. Click HERE to enter.

I am putting my blog on hold right now. That is right...I am unable to post my ugly Christmas sweater photos. Sorry about that!

My husband & I are happy and healthy and I will give more details at a later time but I am taking a break from the blog for a few weeks. Please keep us in your prayers if you think about it.

I will post the winner of the giveaway tomorrow. Thanks!

Christmas Sweaters: Day 4

I had two different tops on today. The sweater & turtleneck I wore for most of the day. I switched right before supper because I was helping to serve dinner tonight and I knew I would be sweating up a storm in my turtleneck. So here are both photos:

1. The snowman sweater:

2. The snowman shirt:

The residents loved both and most noticed I changed outfits mid day. They are getting into the spirit by wearing their "beautiful" (ugly) sweaters as well. One even had on a blinking light necklace.

Christmas Sweaters: Day 3

I had something else picked to wear today but after last night, I was exhausted this morning. Someone had an emergency and pulled the cord in their apartment. This activates an extremely loud beeping sound in our bedroom and wakes us up. This happened at approx. 2:00am. In the two minutes it took us to get out of bed, throw on some robes and shoes and go downstairs, the couples was on their way to the hospital. Thankfully it turned out to be nothing serious. We got back to our apartment and got back into bed around 2:30am. Around 3:00am, another alarm went off. We hardly had a chance to fall asleep. After turning that one off and re-setting the alarms, it was around 3:30am. I am guessing I fell asleep around 4am and slept until my usual 5:45am.

Anyway...so that was our night. I threw on this super comfy sweater which is not quite as ugly as some of the others. Tomorrow I will pull out some truly ugly ones.

Notice how the sleeves are too short? I think this adds to the charm. I must have freakishly long arms since most tops and sweaters are too short on me.

So we made it through breakfast and I was looking forward to a boring Sunday in the office catching up on some paperwork. NOPE!

We had a FIRE. A real fire. I was sitting in the office, the hubby was laying down in our apartment upstairs. The fire alarm went off and our servers came running out of the kitchen. They said there was a fire in the kitchen.

I went into the kitchen and sure enough it was super smokey. I found the chef and we went into the back of the kitchen, into a laundry room that the kitchen uses to wash their items and a dryer was on fire. Thankfully it was a small fire that was contained in the dryer. We put it out. By that time my husband was up and taking care of things. The residents needed calmed, the fire department came and of course I didn't get that paperwork done.

There is always tomorrow.

Christmas Sweaters: Day 2

One of our residents got to dress up as Santa today. This gentleman is an exceptional resident and he has played Santa for 54 years. Isn't that amazing? He did a wonderful job picking up the kids and doing the "Ho Ho Ho" Santa laugh. I did notice he wasn't at supper this evening so I am thinking the event wore him out (I know I am exhausted and I am not in my 80s!). We had 22 children attend, most of whom were great-grandchildren of our residents. We even had a lady bring some of her great-great-grandchildren. She has 15 of them!!!

Here are a few photos. First is my Santa sweater...entirely done in sequins. I got so many compliments from the residents on this one.

The next photo is of my husband & me with Santa.

And lastly was a photo I snapped of the backs of heads. The family photo included Santa (of course) along with great-grandma and great-grandpa, grandma and grandpa, the mom and dad and a few kiddies. I didn't want to show faces so here is the back of the photo :)

Tomorrow we have holiday tap dancers at the retirement community! I know the residents are enjoying all the special events (which are held almost every day from now through Christmas). Thankfully it feels like my cold is getting a bit better. More photos tomorrow.

Christmas Sweaters: Day 1

For those of you who don't know, my husband & I manage a retirement community. The residents LOVE when we dress up for the different holidays. For the next few weeks I am planning on wearing ugly Christmas sweaters & shirts. Today's was a bit calm since it was the first day and it was dress down day here at the facility.

The top has three snowmen on the front and snowflakes on the long sleeves. Excuse the bags under my eyes. I am on day 3 of having a cold and it was a long day today.

Stay tuned for tomorrow's sweater.

My 100th Post & Friday Follows

Well, this is my 100th post. I racked my brain for something fun to post and came up with nothing. My head is a bit foggy from my cold, which is in its third day and hopefully at its peak. I even had to miss the Christmas party at work and it sounded fun since it was at a bowling alley. Darn you cold!

Here are a few Friday follows for you:





And don't forget to enter my giveaway:

ENTER HERE

Thanks for reading!

It is ugly Christmas sweater time!

Today I am doing something I love. Wrapping gifts! A local Christian organization called New Day has a booth set up at the mall. For the last few years I have donated time and wrapped gifts. Today I will be there for 3 hours and I am sure it will put me in a holiday mood.

Unfortunately I still have a cold. I hate to cancel though so I will be bringing lots of tissues, cough drops and hand sanitizer with me.

This week I also started to unpack my ugly Christmas sweaters.

I have collected about 10 of them over the last few years. Some have more "bling" than others. I am in love with the one in the lower left hand corner with the sequined Santa and will wear it for "Breakfast with Santa" this Saturday.

The residents at the retirement community LOVE them. They think they are the prettiest thing and I get tons of compliments.

Do you wear ugly Christmas sweaters?

Giveaway: Sally Hansen LOT - CLOSED

I have another giveaway. This time it is for a lot of Sally Hansen items. My mom gave me nail polish strips for Christmas and I absolutely loved them. This is your chance for FOUR different styles of strips plus the top coat.

You will receive the strips in four different colors:
1. Glitz Blitz (gold glitter)
2. Blue Ice (blue glitter)
3. Laced Up (nude with a black lace print)
4. Misbehaved (gold shimmer with a black fish net print)

And the top coat to seal these for days and days. Each set of nail strips comes with 16 nail polish strips and a file. These are easy to use and you simply peel the strip away from the backing, apply the strip to your nail and shape it with the included file. For extra protection, use the top coat to seal the nail polish.

These usually sell for around $9 a set in the stores so this giveaway has a value of about $40!

This giveaway will go through Thursday, December 15 at noon. I will have Random.org choose a winner that afternoon. The winner will have 48 hours to respond and I will ship these immediately. You will have these in time for the holidays!

Here is how to enter:

2 comments: follow me on my blog
1 comment: leave a comment on any other post besides this one
3 comments: post a link to this giveaway on your blog

Please remember to leave comments below.

Please pray...

Yesterday at church we learned of a mother who works full-time as a nurse. She has a 5 year old boy who is autistic and blind. Their home burned down over the weekend. They completely lost everything. They had to run out in their pajamas (they didn't even have shoes!) and left everything behind. I don't know too many other details but please keep this family in your prayers. This would be devastating but it is especially bad around the holidays.

So today I went to the thrifts and picked up a BUNCH of boy's clothing & toys. It was tons of fun. I got 4 pairs of jeans, 8 tops, 2 sweatshirts, 2 pairs of cords, 3 stuffed animals, five really loud instruments (the mom will be thrilled I'm sure). They were all in excellent condition and the majority of them were Gymboree. I was also able to pick up a Gap winter jacket, three sweaters, and 6 sets of scrubs for the mom. All of this cost me about $100. Isn't Goodwill wonderful?

While I was out shopping and having fun, I stopped at the new pizza place in town. It is a drive-thru which I am loving! I love pizza and I am lazy so this works perfectly for me! I got this awesome creation of cheese, ham, pepperoni and dough. I forget what they called it but it was incredible. And now of course I am feeling guilty for eating about 75% of it before throwing it out the window. I have lost about 9 pounds over the last two months and I am hoping to lose another 10 or so. This is not going to help but it was SOOOO good.

Ebay just announced a listing sale and since I found a few items at the thrifts to re-sell, I will be shopping & listing tomorrow. Here is a link to the announcement for those who want to list before the holidays and make some extra cash:

DECEMBER 6-8: List 5000 items for FREE

On the health front, I feel like I have YET ANOTHER cold coming on. I have a sore throat and a cough. It has been going around the retirement community but since I JUST HAD A COLD (are the cold germs listening?!?) I thought I would be safe. My immune system is terrible though and I know it is going to be a bad one. Ugh.

And tomorrow I will be posting a giveaway so stay tuned.

Fun Quotes from the Retirement Community

We hear a LOT of funny stories and quotes from the folks at the retirement community. Over the last week two really stood out and I wrote them down. Here they are:

1. "Let's face it; All old people look the same." -said by a lady who is in her 90s.

2. "Those are your original teeth!?!" said in disbelief from one lady to another at the dining room table.

Christmas at the Retirement Community

This past week decorated the retirement community my husband & I help manage. I love decorating and we had a bit in the budget for new swags and wreaths. I went to Michaels and LOADED up my cart with sparkly stuff. Here are the two wreaths I made, each was less than $40! Michaels wanted $149-$199 for wreaths like this.

The swags are more tasteful. I made these for about $25 a piece. I love the little feather birds I put in each.

We have two large Nutcrackers on either side of the atrium.

And lastly... THE TREE! I started with 8 rolls of ribbon. I used wire to put two in front, two in back and two on each side of the top of the tree. Then I pinched them in diamonds. Where the ribbons met I put bows. The entire thing took about 2 hours and the entire 8 rolls of ribbon.

This weekend we are going to decorate my father-in-law's home. Can I tell you how much I love decorating for the holidays?!? What do your decorations look like?

Friday Follow

After a busy, busy week of work, I am OFF! Today was spent catching up on sleep. I am still tired and will blog more tomorrow.

Now for a Friday follow:

The Chatty Mommy is my cousin and has a great blog.

My Favorite Christmas Gift

My mom & sister came for Thanksgiving this past week and left Friday. They live in New York, I live in PA. The states are only a few hours away but we don't see each other too often for some reason (we really need to fix this!).

We exchanged Christmas gifts while they were staying at my house. I got a ton of loot! This year we put a cap on our spending which was hard for me. Honestly I went a bit over, even with using the internet and the great deals that ebay had to offer.

I can go on & on about the items I received but one of my very favorites was a Vera Bradley purse from my mom.

The only purse I own (though I do own 8 of them!) is the Vera Bradley "on the go". It has a ton of organization & space which is great for me. I am ALWAYS losing my eye glasses and they fit in one of the outside pockets perfectly. I have purchased each pre-owned from ebay.

My mom got me a brand new one from a boutique. My first new Vera bag. Thanks Mom! Here is what it looks like in the print she bought me.

Isn't it "fab"???

I am happy to say that ALL my Christmas cards are in the mail and I am done shopping for Christmas. It is kind of sad though since I love to shop for other people. Ha!

Our Thanksgiving Photos

Today my mom, sister, husband, father-in-law and I celebrated our Thanksgiving. I realize it is a day early but the hubby & I have to be back at work tomorrow and we wanted to make our last day at home as stress-free as possible.

We had WAY too much food (of course) and had a great time. It ended with my mom, sister & I trying to line dance in my kitchen.


We had a 12lb turkey, a 10lb ham, homemade mashed potatoes, cooked yams, stuffing (also called dressing in some parts of the country), 16 rolls, 12 corn bread muffins, corn, salad and sugar cookies for dessert.

Here is the stuffing my mom made with green apples, sausage, onion, celery and dried cranberries. I tasted it and it was YUM!

The turkey & ham BOTH fit in our stove. Thank goodness!

Here is the finished turkey:

And the stuffing again with the yams, both uncooked in this photo:

Our table was two tables put together since our usual table only sits 4:

Our "thankful leaves" next to the plate settings. We wrote what we were thankful for on them and hung them on our "thankful tree". We do this every year. It is a great tradition!

The next few are my mom & sister making (and tasting!) the food:

My husband & his 85-year old father:

My gorgeous sister and me:

I hope everyone has an absolutely WONDERFUL Thanksgiving tomorrow!

Virtual Makeovers

My mom and sister are staying at our house for a week and I am thrilled to have them. Last night my sister & I were playing with a website that is AWESOME! The website is: www.taaz.com. It gives you a virtual make-over and it is very accurate. You simply take a photo of you without make-up and your hair pulled back.

Here is the photo I used about a year ago on the website. Thankfully I saved it so I didn't need a new one last night.

Here are a few looks I came up with. The first is the Tori Spelling hair cut.

The next is a thick band. I have always wondered what I looked like with bangs.

The last is Dolly Parton's haircut. I kind of look like Paula Deen - ha!

Here is what Paula Deen looks like, for those of you that don't know.

An "up do":

Shiny hair!

With a blonde shag cut, very white teeth and BLUE eyes!

And the last one...as an avatar!

It is extremely fun & addicting...and free!